ramblings on the life of art and the art of living…

Autumn trek to Granville Island

Yesterday was a decidedly sedate autumn day, without any rain and still quite warm, all things considered–perfect for a visit to Granville Island (even though it isn’t really an island). I love going, though I seldom get over there.

One of my favourite stops is Maiwa, a textile and fibre arts bit of heaven. I managed to not succumb to the call of many and sundry whatsits, limiting my purchase to India Flint’s book Eco Colour: Botanical Dyes for Beautiful Textiles and a handful of Indian textile stamps.

I also joined the Malaspina Printmakers Society and plan to attend a workshop or two some time in the future. They have quite a variety of classes and workshops available, even on weekends–cool! I’ve always felt that printmaking was an under appreciated art form.

After enjoying a delightful lunch from Curry 2U and Rubina Kitchen at an outside table on the covered patio, I must admit that the highlight of the day was getting to feed about a half dozen starlings with my tandoori chicken scraps directly from my hand. They were tentative at first, but once the first few were satisfied with their score without coming to any harm, they unabashedly sat at arms length along the backs of chairs until the chicken scraps were depleted.

Dessert consisted of an apple struedel from another de rigueur stop, La Baguette & L’échalote Bakery, which also provided this morning’s breakfast of pain au chocolat to accompany my coffee. Besides, it’s one of the few places where I can bust out my French. 🙂

Plans for today are to head over to the market to pick up some chicken and beef for roasting, to accompany the root vegetables that I will be roasting as well. With a number of ripe bananas sitting on the counter, if I’m feeling really ambitious, perhaps a batch of espresso banana muffins from Heidi Swanson’s Super Natural Cooking may be in order.